Even When It Is Not Your Fault

Remember last week’s mini-adventures – The scoring of a really cheap flight, the perfect weather, the spontaneous road trip down the south coast of NSW? Well it wasn’t all that marvelous. Somewhere in between the chocolate topped ice-creams and the craggy cliffs and the salty sea spray, we had an accident.

We were easily flowing with the afternoon traffic downhill through a small coastal town Austinmer, admiring it’s beach ahead when we felt a something ‘bump’ into the back of our car, jolting us all sharply forward. Next thing I see from the corner of my eye is someone flying past my window. I slammed on the brakes and even before the car completely stopped, my sibling in the back (who in her head thinks she’s a paramedic) jumped out and ran to this person now lying on the road. After reassuring my rather shaken mom, I got out. Instead of focusing on the person who was now thankfully was sitting up, all I could stare at was his one shoe that was crushed under our car’s tyre. The wonderful Aussie hospitality came through when people from nearby homes came to help the guy. Someone had called the police and an ambulance was on its way. Apparently the man who was riding a motorbike had lost control and he had hit another car traveling in the opposite direction before hitting us. While my sister did her good samaritan thing, I just stood by next to the car with my arms crossed. I’m not sure what my reaction would have been if the guy hadn’t moved but he did and he was breathing and apart from the obvious cuts and bruises he looked fine and so, I was just stood there plain pissed off. None of this was my fault.

Tow truck loading the motorbike that hit us from the back!

The guy looked around 70 years old and while I am not an ageist (see my ageing romantic post) he in my opinion was just too bloody old to be on motorbike in the first place. Secondly if you do want to go all YOLO after retirement by all means go for it but just not on a major highway on a busy weekend. Yes, yes it could happen to anyone and all that but that isn’t the point of this post. The point is that this accident ruined our trip, distressed my poor mama, put me through 2 hours of interrogation, paperwork, breath tests, nearly put my license in jeopardy (double demerits!), broke my clean driver’s record that I maintained for the past 14 years, the drama that was to follow with the car rental company and that it wasn’t was my fault.

Before the police and ambulance arrived on scene, a bloke walked up the hill in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and introduced himself as an off-duty police officer. I must have looked skeptic because he got his ID out. He was a rude bastard and the 2nd worst thing to happen that day. Without even looking around, he assumed that the accident was my fault. Asian driver = bad driver thought, probably. Well he behaved like a down right twat. He yelled at me to move my car so that he could retrieve the guy’s shoe. Really? Weren’t you supposed to not move your car till the police arrived? (Sorry he did snort down my throat that he was THE police) Thanks to the over twenty eyewitnesses, that by the time I came back from moving the car down the beach several people had come over to express their sentiments of how rude he was. And that wasn’t my fault either.

Breathalyzer test and reading over my statement about the accident.

This is where life sucks. These are the grey shades lined with murky green where ‘everything happens for a reason’ doesn’t exist. There’s no learning curves here. No silver lining to the black cloud. No cherry blossomed enlightenment at the end of the tunnel. This is where shit happens and you can’t do a damned thing about it.

It’s a bit like the Oldest Child Syndrome. Where it is not your fault that you are the oldest but somehow you will be connected and partly responsible for the cock ups of your younger siblings. Being the eldest in my family certainly hasn’t been easy because I was expected to ‘help out with the kids’ when we were young. So when the ‘kids’ shit occasionally does hit the fan, I am indirectly and irrevocably always held accountable.

someecards.com

Point is no matter how clean and proper you go about your life, the possibility of someone else’s crap spilling on you is always high. And so what do you do when it’s not fault? Turn back around and abandon your road trip? Fight with the entire system just because a racist police officer couldn’t do his job properly? Or do you just simply disown your family because they can’t keep their shit together? Well like they say in Australia – Harden The Fuck Up. Life sucks at times. Grit your teeth, suck it up and get through it.

Oh and make sure you take the full insurance cover option when renting cars,too!